Meeting Maria 27-2 - A Decimal Number One-ish Shot
by Mackiecam
Summary: In Security 26, Stephanie meets Ranger's family - all except for his sister Maria and his brother Silvio. Maria, however, felt left out and she and her husband come up to Newark to visit. This story, which follows the story Sneaky 27, presents the visit with Ranger's family and the meeting between Maria and Stephanie.
1. Chapter 1

"Relax", said Ranger. We were on our way to his family's house again. I had met most of his family for the first time just a couple of weeks earlier. At least, I had met his immediate family who all lived in Newark. I hadn't, however, met Ranger's sister Maria and her husband, as they both lived in Florida, or his brother Silvio who was in the military and was currently stationed in the Middle East. Apparently, Maria felt left out with not having had a chance to meet me, and she and her husband had arranged to come up to Newark to get to know me. Ranger's family had been quite excited to find out that Ranger was interested in someone. I was the first woman that he had brought home since he had brought home Rachel fifteen years ago. That was a long time for him to be celibate. Of course, we hadn't actually been celibate over the years. That was something we kept quiet though, especially since I'd had a boyfriend at the time – and that boyfriend wasn't Ranger.

I don't know if I could claim Ranger as a boyfriend now either. Sure, I'd broken up with Morelli and didn't have any ties to him any longer. And I had decided that, if Ranger was interested, I would be interesting in exploring a romantic relationship with him. I think. I needed to get to know him better, however, before I decided for sure. What I knew, I liked. I don't think I had ever met someone that I respected as much as I respect Ranger. He was an honorable man, slow to anger, supportive.

Both of the last two qualities were surprising to me. I'd had two previous serious relationships. The first was with Dickie, my ex-husband. He was only supportive to me when we were making love, and when we were together I thought that meant that he loved me. It wasn't until we were married that I found out that he was supportive to many other women as well. I walked in on him being supportive to Joyce Barnhardt, that skank, on my dining room table, three months after I had gotten married to Dickie. I left Dickie – and my dining room table – behind and filed for divorce in the shortest marriage in Burg history.

My second serious relationship was with Joe Morelli, a Trenton cop. That relationship lasted longer than my marriage to Dickie. He, like Ranger, was an honorable man. Unlike Ranger, he was quick-tempered and frequently had to talk himself down from whatever the stressor was. Unfortunately, that stressor was often me. He was loving and kind, and unlike Dickie he was faithful and loyal. He just had a slight problem with my chosen profession and believed that I attracted trouble faster than he could get rid of it. He often commented that I should have a regular police officer dedicated just to me, to handle all the firebombings, vandalisms, thefts, shootings, assaults, kidnappings, murder attempts… They weren't my fault, however. And I didn't have that many – just an average of one a week or so. Surely there were other people who were on first name basis with every police officer on the force.

Okay, he may have had a point, but it didn't make me feel good when he pointed out that I collected disasters like other women collected purses. So what if I had to call the police on a weekly – and sometimes daily – basis? I looked at me as someone providing a valuable service. I was making sure that there was a demand for officers and was, in fact, assuring job security for the police. I told him that the police union should be awarding me a medal. He didn't think much of my theory and instead grabbed his Rolaids from his pocket and chewed on two – or four, depending upon the situation that I had been in that caused that complaint in the first place.

So now I had broken up with Morelli. He had yelled at me one too many times when what I really needed was support . Not the kind of support that Dickie provided, but honest emotional support. When he yelled at me, I had just shot someone – not fatally – but it was still upsetting to me. Ranger had run into the crime scene and asked me if I was okay. Morelli ran into the crime scene right afterwards and proceeded to chew me out. The difference between the two people really slapped me in the face. It was a little hard to take.

I had known that the difference existed. After all, that was why I had begun to rely on Ranger more and more as the relationship between Morelli and me was breaking down. I needed Ranger's constancy. He was my rock, not Morelli, and that told me that the relationship was doomed as well. I guess Morelli sensed there was a problem too. His solution to the problem was to propose with the intention that, when we were married, to get me pregnant and make me quit my job, but I knew by then that Morelli would never become my rock.

I guess everybody had different characteristics that they needed in the person that they considered their rock. I needed constancy, unwavering support, and a steadiness that gave me strength when things went wrong in my life. Because things went wrong in my life an awful lot. Morelli wasn't that person.

So Morelli and I had broken up. He was unhappy about it, but to tell you the truth I felt like there was a weight off my shoulders. I no longer had to be nervous about telling him that I had experienced one of my many mishaps. Even though he was still often the responding detective when I had a mishap. Well, that wasn't not entirely true. I was still nervous about telling him. He still yelled at me. But at least I knew I wasn't going home to that anger when I left work for the day. Even though he didn't hang on to his anger, he did hang on to his belief that I needed to quit my job. That belief was hard to take on a daily basis and had been a constant source of tension.

We may have broken up, but Trenton was still anticipating that we'd get back together. That wouldn't happen. Even so, I heard that there was a pool going in the precinct of when our reunion would occur. Eddie, my friend who was married to my cousin Shirley-the-whiner, and Carl, another friend that I had known since diapered days, had both contacted me to try to find out how they should vote.

I had even basically told Morelli that I was now seeing Ranger, a fact that upset Morelli. He told me that he wouldn't stop trying to get back together with me. He said he wanted to marry me. He was more dedicated to me now than he was the whole time that we were together. Sure, he'd asked me to marry him a few times, but I had always known that he wasn't serious. He was serious about me not getting hurt, and he was serious in that he loved me, and he thought by marrying me I wouldn't get into trouble. I loved him, too, and I would be upset if something happened to him. But just like I knew that I didn't want the white picket fence with Morelli, I also knew that he didn't really want it with me either. We were good friends, and we knew each other well.

I knew that I'd always love him. I hoped we'd always be friends. But at the end of our relationship, we were losing the friendship and the love was being used as a weapon rather than a support. So I tapped out. Morelli was, unfortunately, ready to go another round.

But tapping out was a good move for me. It meant that I was free to investigate a relationship with Ranger, and that seemed to be something Ranger was interested in too. He had asked me out for a few dates now – and he had asked me to his parents' for dinner. That was a couple of weeks ago and, despite me being incredibly nervous, his family seemed very nice and welcoming. I met his grandmother, his mom and dad, three of his sisters, two of his brother-in-laws, and his four nephews and one niece. Unlike the last time my parents saw Ranger, his family didn't ask me when I was marrying him, and also unlike my grandmother, no one asked me for an accounting of how he was in bed. I had a good time with his family.

But I hadn't met Maria and her husband, and I would be meeting the rest of his family – except for Silvio – for only the second time. I was nervous.

"My family likes you", said Ranger. He took my clenched hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed my knuckles before putting it on his leg so that he could downshift.

"What happens if Maria doesn't like me?"

"How could she not? Everyone likes you. You're the most likeable person that I have ever met. You just have to walk in a room and within minutes you have the occupants all wrapped around your little finger."

"That's not true. Besides, your family isn't just anyone. I want your family to like me. It's important to me to make a good impression."

"You already have."

"What's your sister like?"

"She's a lot like you. I think you'll get along together with her well."

"Your poor family. Is she also a disaster magnet?"

"You aren't a disaster magnet. You just happen to work in an area where you are exposed to the underbelly of society, and you come into contact with a wide variety of people that are more criminally inclined. Some of those people aren't nice people to play with and they take it out on you. That isn't your fault, and it doesn't make you a disaster magnet."

"Unlucky then?"

"I hope not. I hope tonight, especially, you'll be very lucky."

I smiled. I wanted to be lucky later as well.


	2. Chapter 2

Ranger turned onto his parents' street, and shortly afterwards he parked in front of his parents' house. "It will be fine", he said. I took a deep breath. I didn't have his confidence.

We got out of the car as Manosas came pouring out of the house, and Ranger and I were enveloped into hugs and ushered in. When Ranger had introduced me to Maria and Fernando and we all sat down, I said, "has the neighbor recovered from their sham of a wedding?" When I was there last, the neighbor had gotten married by a skip that I'd been looking for. The skip had been arrested for unlawful solemnization of weddings. I hadn't, until that point, even known that it was a real charge. I don't think Trenton had ever arrested anyone on that charge before, and I doubt they will arrest anyone else on that charge again.

Anyway, the fake justice of the peace saw me as she was leaving the house and ran away. I ran after her, and tackled her a few houses up the street. We rolled around in the mud for a bit before I was able to cuff her. Even though Ranger swore his family didn't see me flashing my undies at them, I worried anyway. I had been wearing one of my sexier pairs of panties. If I had known that I would be flashing Ranger's family, I would have worn an old pair of granny panties. Of course, I didn't own any granny panties. I could have 'borrowed' a new pair from my grandmother though. My mother kept buying them for my grandmother to try to encourage my grandmother to wear them, but my grandmother refused. She also was addicted to sexy panties and wore them in hopes of getting a honey that would be interested in seeing them. So far, she hadn't been successful.

It was still one of my more memorable first meetings. In fact, it was up there with the time I met Ranger's friends at a wedding he was attending – and got food poisoning. It seemed that whenever I met someone important to Ranger, I always ended up embarrassing myself.

"That was so cool", said Carlos, one of Ranger's nephews. "You were just 'freeze, sucker', and then you took off after her, and then you cuffed her."

"I don't think I have ever said 'freeze, sucker' in my life", I said.

Ranger laughed. "Perhaps you'd capture people more easily if you did."

"Is that your secret? I thought it was your scary glower that did it."

"My glower?"

"Yeah. If the skips are women, they want to be cuffed by you. Maybe not to go to jail, but they want to be cuffed by you." Ranger grimaced. "If the skips are men, they are intimidated by you and don't want to take the chance that it comes to a fight, and you scare them into cooperating by glowering at them."

"I'm glad all that practicing in the mirror of my glower worked."

I laughed. "I don't know. Your glower is intimidating, but Tank's is even better."

Ranger frowned. "I'll have to practice more then."

I turned to Ranger's family. "Tank is someone who works for Ranger that is built like a tank. He is as muscled as Ranger, but he's six-and-a-half feet tall. I had a skip that was fifteen years old who made a habit of stealing road signs, then filming the consequential accidents and posting them on YouTube. The parents asked us to scare the kid into doing the right thing. I took Tank and Hal, another one of Ranger's employees who is particularly large and muscled, and we found him at the local internet café posting another video. We took him back to be bonded out, but we scared him at the same time. Hal walked around the kid and smacked his Maglite against his hand while Tank was crowding the kid out and whispering menacingly in his ear. The kid wet himself twice."

"I wonder if that was enough to keep him out of trouble", said Lucia, Ranger's mother.

"I've been checking up on him, actually. His parents made him pay the bail himself out of his own money. His parents grounded him and check up on him regularly. He's no longer allowed to go to the internet café and his phone has been taken away from him. I check in with both the kid and his parents about once a week, and things seem like they are going well. The kid was very angry that he doesn't have access to his phone, but he's doing whatever he can do to get his phone back. The parents are trying hard to do right by their child. He's due in court in another week. The last time he was supposed to go to court his parents didn't go with him, as they wanted him to face his charges by himself. This time, they are going to ensure that he shows up. I have promised to show up as well. The kid seems to have turned a corner, and I don't think that he will break the law again."

"Is that part of your job, to go to court to follow the felons through the system?" said Ranger's grandmother, Grandma Rosa.

"No, it isn't."

"But that doesn't stop you", said Ranger.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Sometimes people need a little support. Not all felons are bad people. In some cases, they have made a bad decision or have just had a bit of bad luck, and those people should be supported so that they can turn their lives around."

"What kinds of things do you do to support them?" said Ranger's father, Mateo.

"I've done everything from driving skips to court, to helping them get dressed and ready to go, to babysitting their kids while they were in court, to sitting with them while they waited for their turn in front of the judge. As I said, sometimes people just need a little help."

"Do you get paid for that?" asked Maria.

Ranger laughed. "No. In fact, if the skips didn't go to court they would likely have to be bonded out again and it would be a source of future income for Stephanie. She goes above and beyond her role, and her skips are the better for it."

"To me, the people I'm bringing back into the court system are people with problems. If I can give them a hand up from their problems, then shouldn't I do that?"

"Do all bounty hunters help people like that?" said Fernando.

"No", said Ranger. "Steph is the only bounty hunter that provides that sort of service. People are lucky if she is the bounty hunter that is sent to pick them up. I have even heard of her buying meals for her skips, and with one skip she took them to the store and bought them a new pair of pants and a blouse because the skip didn't have anything suitable to wear to court. All of that comes out of her own pocket. I often think that her pay that she earns through Rangeman is used to supplement the extra services she provides to the skips."

I could feel my face turn red. "As I said, some skips are good people who have made bad decisions. I like to take care of them. I particularly like to take care of the seniors. Often, they were just doing something to give their lives excitement, but they had the misfortune of getting caught instead. Everyone has a reason that they didn't go to court, and if they already have a missed court date in their past, I try to make sure they get to court the next time around."

"The person Steph mostly partners with has a colorful past walking the streets, and many of the felons are interested in hearing her stories."

"Lula is a good person", said Steph. "We've had felons tell us that they will continue missing court dates just so that Lula and I will come and pick them up. We had one former felon, an elderly man, who said that he'd miss his court dates as long as he could afford to, just so that we'd pick him up and take him out to lunch on the way to the courts and so that he could hear more of Lula's and my stories. I have since promised him to take him out of his nursing home for lunch every couple of weeks as long as he goes to court when he is supposed to. It's cheaper for him overall for him to pay for his own lunch than it is to pay the fifteen percent of his bond. Lula and I always have a blast with him."

"Have you ever thought of going into social work for a profession?" asked Fernando. "It sounds like you'd be a natural."

"Don't say that", said Ranger. "Steph is the best researcher we've ever had at Rangeman, and I don't want to lose her."

"The last time you were here you were struggling a bit with the amount of work that you had to do. Is work still really busy?" said Rosa.

"It is, but it is more manageable. Ranger and I were sneaky and developed a plan to capture a number of skips all at once. Our plan was successful and with Ranger's help I was able to clear up my outstanding files."

"What did you do?" said Maria.

"We offered a free bottle of Jack Daniel's to people and told them that they had to be at home to accept the bottle. When I handed the bottle to them, we arrested them."

"Weren't they angry?" said Elena.

"In some cases. In most cases, however, they were more interested in whether I was leaving them the whisky."

"Did you?" said Lucia.

I laughed. "Of course. I didn't want to totally lie."

"Steph even put a bow on it", said Ranger with a laugh. "I give Steph flex hours so that she can do her research around her skip chasing but, in actuality, she's working two full-time jobs. She's very good with her time management skills and does an incredible amount of work over a short period, but anyone other than Stephanie would be struggling."

"Can you give her less work at Rangeman so that she doesn't work too hard?" said Grandma Rosa.

"I don't mind the work", I said. "Ranger and I often have working dates where we look for skips together. I save all the really dangerous ones for when Ranger is helping me. Lula is great and a lot of fun, but she isn't much help when we are trying to take down a serial killer. She's a rather large woman, and her method of catching people is to jump on them and squash them like a bug. She's rather proud of her signature move."

"Do you have a signature move as well?" said Carlos.

I blushed. "Yes."

"She sacks them", said Ranger. "It is rather fun to watch, even if it does make me wince every time."

"Ranger is teaching me other methods that I can use", I said. "As he says, sacking only works on men."

"Self-defense is so important to learn", said Lucia.

"That's true", I said. "I wish they taught it to all girls especially in school. I mean, why does a girl have to learn how to play tennis but not learn self-defense in high school gym class? It doesn't make sense. Self-defense skills are far more important."

"Will you teach your nieces self-defense?" said Elena.

"I already am. My mother isn't too impressed, and my sister thinks that she's humoring me by letting her girls learn it."

"What does your grandmother think?" said Ranger.

"Grandma is doing the lessons with me. She'll be the terror of the senior's center. She has already told me that Piddle Pete is going down."

"Someone's name is Piddle Pete?" said Celia.

"That's not his actual name. That's more a name that was given to him because he doesn't fully dry off after being in the bathroom and his pants are all wet around the middle region. And that's all assuming that he makes it to the bathroom in time. He frequently wets his pants. No one wants to sit beside him in church, let me tell you." Everyone laughed.

"Do you go to church?" said Grandma Rosa.

"I'm supposed to, and my mother would like me going more than I do. But I normally only go on major holidays with my family. I tend to work a lot and when I do get time off, I spend it sleeping or with Ranger."

"Steph works so many hours that she basically only has between two and four hours a day to do things like eat and bathe and otherwise take care of herself. She doesn't have a lot of time for leisure activities, and I class religion as a leisure activity", said Ranger. "Like me, she was brought up as a Catholic."

"It's a good thing that Grandma Martina isn't here to hear you say that religion is a leisure activity", said Lucia with a laugh. "She would smack you on the back of your head for that."

Ranger laughed and looked at me. "Grandma Martina is a little like Grandma Bella. She is highly religious and thinks God is a personal servant who does whatever she asks. Everything that happens she attributes to God's plan, as if you had no free thought at all. It's always a little upsetting to talk to her. She likes to tell people that she'll pray for their souls. I have kept her busy over the last couple of decades and have had my soul prayed over several times."

"Does she live in Newark?" I said. I swallowed hard.

"No", said Mateo. "My mother never got along with Grandma Rosa so when Grandma Rosa moved in, my mother decided that it would be better to live with my brother than it was to live in the same vicinity as Grandma Rosa. We lucked out."

Maria laughed. "Instead, I get to see her about once a week. She frequently prays over me as though she has an in with God. She goes to church every day."

"She looks a bit like a caramel version of Grandma Bella, and although she doesn't give anyone the eye, she does often proclaim that you're going to Hell", said Ranger. "If she's really angry, she'll tell you that she's sending you there."

Oh, boy. I was glad that she didn't live in Newark either. That was one of the hardest things about breaking up with Morelli. His grandmother, Grandma Bella, for years had hated me. Ever since I had run over Morelli and broken his leg when I was eighteen, she had regularly given me the eye and cursed me, and every time I met her she told me that I was a bad person and no good for her grandson. However, since breaking up with Morelli she had apparently decided that I was a good person for her grandson and that I should have stayed with him. She has vowed to give me the eye the next time I see her for having the audacity to break up with him. I luckily hadn't seen her. Knowing her, the curse that she'd give me would be to get my period continuously for the rest of my life. That wouldn't be as much fun as when she cursed me with the vordu curse, where I had an insatiable need for sex.

The two-year old, Matthew, toddled over to me and asked to get up, and I put him on my knee and bounced him around. He laughed and, when I stopped, he said, "'gain" until I did it again.

"Do you like kids?" said Maria.

I tensed. This was a hot topic for me and was a conversation I had with my family quite a lot. They didn't understand why I didn't want them.

"I like them in theory, and I love my nieces. But I love them more from afar than I do close up. I like being able to hand them back at the end of the night. Now that the girls are getting older I like them more. I like seeing their personalities come out."

"So we shouldn't expect babies?" said Maria with a disappointed tone.

I laughed uncomfortably as Ranger grabbed my hand and squeezed in support. He knew what a difficult topic it was for me. "I like my life the way it is. I like my jobs and I like being busy. For the first time ever, my savings account has made it out of the single digits. But I work a lot, I don't work standard hours, and the people I work with aren't always the nicest people and they periodically take it out on me. I couldn't do what I do and be a mother as well. It wouldn't be fair to my child. Add in the fact that I've never thought that children were the be-all and end-all and, although I'm sure I would love my child if I had one, I wouldn't love to have a child. It just doesn't make sense for me to have kids."

"I can see that", said Maria.

"It's wise of you", said Grandma Rosa. "Having children is a big decision and requires you to adapt your life quite a bit, and if you aren't prepared for or willing to do that, then having children isn't a good choice for you."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "That's what I've always felt. What about you?" I said to Maria.

"Unlike you, I'd love to have children. However, I haven't been blessed with any yet, even though we've been trying for a while. We are looking into fostering some children. There are so many kids out there who have been given a bad start to life, and we were thinking that we could help them by giving them a stable base, a safe place where they'd be supported. Fernando is a social worker and I'm a teacher, and we think our training would make us good people to raise a troubled youth. We've started investigating the option."

"That's commendable of you. I think any child assigned to you as foster parents would be very lucky", I said.

The oven buzzed and Ranger's parents and Elena and William all got up. "Dinner will be ready in approximately fifteen minutes", said Lucia.

"It smells amazing", I said. "What are we having?"

"We remembered that you said that you preferred meat", said Mateo. "We made prime rib for dinner, and we're having it with roasted potatoes, sautéed carrots and parsnips, and peas. It's an easy meal."

"Doesn't sound easy to me", I said with a laugh, "but I appreciate that you think so. It sounds delicious." When Ranger's family left the room, I turned to Ranger. "What's a parsnip?" I whispered.


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner was congenial, and I had the Manosas laughing as I told stories about some of the captures I had done. They were a great audience and were as enraptured with the stories as my grandmother was. They shuddered when I told them of the humping dogs and the cement-like semen they excreted in my hair. They gasped when I told them of the person who kept an attack alligator to protect his house, and the one that kept a pet boa constrictor in his trailer – and they laughed when I told them Lula's reaction to those particular pets. And they were fascinated by some of the funnier reasons that people had been arrested.

After dinner was finished, Maria, Fernando, Celia, Rosa, Ranger and I cleaned up the kitchen. Maria told us of some of the funny things the kids in her class did. Fernando told of some of the funny things his clients did. Celia told us of some of the funny things her children did. Rosa told of some of the funny things her library patrons did. Ranger didn't tell any funny stories at all.

By the time the kitchen was cleaned up, Gabriel had bathed the kids and Celia and Gabriel and their two boys were ready to go home. Elena's and William's three kids were fading fast and also needed to go home. I was fading fast as well, and Ranger and I said goodbye to his family and got in the car, ready to drive back to Trenton. I told Ranger that I liked Maria as much as I liked the rest of his family, and that was an awful lot. They were good people, and unlike my family they didn't even seem to mind that I chased felons for a living. Of course, that was a facet of Ranger's job as well. I guessed that they were used to the concept.

Between the soft classical music that Ranger had on the stereo and the full tummy from the excellent dinner, I was relaxed and five minutes into the drive I was sound asleep.

Ranger drove directly to his building. When we got there, he picked me up and carried me up to his apartment. I was vaguely aware of Tank meeting us on the seventh floor as Ranger juggled me and his keys opening his front door. "No", said Ranger. "Steph is fine. She just fell asleep in the car, and I didn't want to wake her."

"Thank God", said Tank. "The control room was worried she was hurt when they saw you carrying her." Tank turned to the camera in the hallway and gave a thumbs-up sign before taking the key from Ranger's hand and opening the door. "Have a good night", he said as he followed us into the apartment, put the key on the silver tray, and left again.

Ranger took me into his bedroom and took my dress off, helped me out of my bra, and tucked me into bed. I was asleep again before he was able to pull up the blankets.

The next morning, I woke to Ranger's arm over my waist and something prodding me in my back. I was enveloped in Ranger, and it was a pretty fantastic feeling. Ranger turned off his alarm and carefully started to extricate himself. "I'm awake", I said.

He brushed aside my hair and kissed me on the back of my neck and I shivered. There were a number of places that Ranger could kiss me that I loved to be kissed, but nothing got me more interested in further activity faster than kissing me on the back of my neck. And Ranger knew it. He kissed me one more time and, just about the same time as I decided that sleep was overrated and I should roll over, Ranger got himself out of bed and walked into the bathroom. "Bastard", I said after him.

Ranger laughed. "I'll have a quick workout", he said, "and then maybe we could shower together."

Hell yeah, I thought. Partner showering was always good.

While Ranger was in the gym, I brushed my teeth, felt my legs to see if I needed to shave before Ranger and I had a shower together – they were thankfully still smooth from shaving them the day before – and made the coffee.

Ranger looked surprised to see me up when he came up from the gym. He met me in the kitchen. "I thought you'd be asleep."

"Nope", I said. "I decided that you'd like a coffee when you returned from the gym."

Ranger looked amused. "In other words, you wanted a coffee."

"Someone woke me up too much this morning to go back to sleep. Can you blame me? I always like a coffee in the morning."

Ranger thought about smiling. I took a paper napkin off the roll, crumpled it up and threw it at him. He laughed as he caught it.

"I had been looking forward to waking you", he said.

I smiled. I knew how he liked to wake me. He had woken me three times during the night, and I had to say that the method he chose to wake me was pretty fantastic. "I could run back to bed and pretend to be asleep", I said.

I put down my cup, and Ranger gathered me into a hug. "No need to go back to bed", he said. "I'll just pretend that you're sleepwalking."

I smiled as he gave me a deep kiss. Sleepwalking was good.


End file.
